Other Scripts To Number Google Search Results

If you’re someone who’s likely to use this (ie an SEO practitioner or website administrator checking their rankings), you’re probably saying "Wait! Aren’t there already Greasemonkey scripts for this?"

Yes there are.

For years, I’ve relied on the Numbered Google Results script, but it seems it’s not being updated. When Google introduced the SearchWiki functionality, it stopped working, prompting me to write a simple hack to fix the problem. I left a comment on the script’s home page, but the fix wasn’t added to the script. I’m not complaining, because I didn’t email the author (Dave Child) directly – I had my fix and, as a user, I was happy.

Now, Google has introduced AJAX powered search results, which has broken Numbered Google Results again (along with many other Greasemonkey scripts). AJAX powered search results have been being phased in for a while now, but recently it’s become a lot more common.

There’s also another script, Google Search Results – Numbered, but it starts at 1 on every page. For example, items on the first page of results will be numbered 1 to 10 and items on the second page will also be numbered 1 to 10 (instead of 11 to 20). I didn’t even bother seeing if it worked with the AJAX powered search.

What This Script Offers

Instead, I wrote my own script, which works with the AJAX powered search results, SearchWiki and can number entries appropriately for pages other than the first one.

I didn’t mean to write my own. I started off hacking Numbered Google Results, but I ran into a serious problem I couldn’t resolve, so I started again from scratch. As it happens, I encountered the same problem and my eventual solution could have worked with Numbered Google Results.

I’ve got no problem if the author of Numbered Google Results wants to fix his script and keep his place as the number script for numbering the Google SERPs. Open source is great!

My eventual solution will also help many other Greasemonkey scripts for Google Search, so I’ll write up what I did in case it’s useful for others – although I should point out I didn’t actually make it work with the AJAX powered search results, I just worked out how to bypass them and force the use of the traditional search.

This may not work forever, as Google may eventually turn off the traditional search, but such is the life of a Greasemonkey script: when the site changes, the script breaks.